100 Yellow Doors

august 19th, 2019, 4:23 p.m.

It was probably a bad sign that Iman had yet to move from her position on the couch and it was now past four o'clock. It was probably a worse sign that Iman couldn't bring herself to care.

Beck had left early that morning—slightly hungover but not too hungover to function—saying that he had plans today, but he'd be back to help her with dinner. Dinner. She'd been excited when she'd invited Julien over, when she was physically saying the words to him. She'd felt like she was doing the right thing, like she was being a good friend. So why did she have this awful feeling, like cement was hardening in her stomach?

Maybe it had been the look on his face. He'd looked desperate, lost, hopeless. Iman couldn't remember him ever looking at her like that, and she wasn't sure what it meant, or what she was supposed to do.

Iman sighed, stretching her legs long across the couch and balancing her laptop on her belly. She craned her neck, squinting at the schedule of classes pulled up on screen. It was graduate school. She expected to feel like she had after graduating high school, like anything was possible, like her whole life was ahead of her. Except she didn't. She only dreaded the fact that summer was over and that soon, her free time would be, too.

As she was clicking through, checking class times and adding classes to her schedule, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She expected Julien or Beck, so a jolt of surprise ran through her when she wrestled the phone from her pocket and read the name Hana as the caller ID.

Iman picked up, eyebrows furrowed. "Hana?"

"Why do you sound confused, Im?"

"Uh," Iman sputtered. "I don't know. I guess it's just been a minute since we talked—"

"Yes. I know, I know," said Iman's older sister, sighing into the phone. Iman stretched to set her computer on the coffee table and rolled over onto her stomach. Was it bad news? Good news? It had to be some sort of news. What other reason would there be for Hana to call her, after all? She was busy being married and motherly and rich. "That's precisely why I'm calling you."

"Is it?"

"Yeah. Cam and I are going to be in town for a bit, next week. Like, in DC. Do you think you'll have time to talk?"

Talk. Something about the way Hana said it made Iman's skin crawl. She loved her sisters. She did. She loved her family. It was the things they talked about that she could do without. "Talk about what?"

For the first time since Iman had picked up the phone, Hana was quiet. She said, after a lengthy beat, "I just...I just want to catch up, you know? I just want to catch up."

Iman was saved from having to furnish some sort of reply by the buzz of her doorbell. She jumped to her feet, peering into the security cam. Beck was a fuzzy figure outside the complex, holding a grocery bag overflowing with leafy things. "Sure," Iman said. "I'd like that."

She didn't know why Hana sounded so relieved. "Really?"

"Yeah, I would. Hey—Beck just got here. Can I call you later?"

"Oh, you're still dating—yeah, yeah. That's fine. Love you."

"Love you, too," Iman said, and end the phone call, buzzing Beck up.

A moment later he was in her apartment, dropping the grocery bag off on the kitchen counter and a kiss on Iman's forehead. He flicked on the overhead light, shrouding the kitchen in gold light, and started setting out ingredients on the granite. Spinach, tomatoes, mozzarella, angel hair spaghetti, a mesh bag of garlic. Iman winced.

Beck noticed. "What? Is Julien not a pasta guy? I just figured he'd be a pasta guy."

Of course Julien was a pasta guy. Julien was an everything guy; that wasn't the problem. "No, no it's fine. Thank you. He'll like it."